Teaching

Harry Pepl as a teacher in Graz

In 1976 the Kunstuniversität Graz (University of Music and Performing Arts Graz) offered Harry Pepl the direction of the training class in jazz guitar. He taught there from 1977 and became full professor in 1984; his teaching ended in the mid-1990s.¹ For him the decision was an artistic one too: with the teaching profession he left studio and entertainment music behind and played only jazz.²

Pepl, himself self-taught, taught mainly by playing for his students. Guido Jeszenszky, who began studying with him in 1977, remembers that he arrived with a changing selection of guitars, was constantly searching for sounds and played almost the whole time in lessons.³ For his class he wrote pieces such as “Boo Bop”, originally for four guitars.⁴ Teaching gave him a great deal himself as well: “By constantly playing for them, I was always thinking for myself about what else one could do.”⁵ Heckel writes that Pepl evidently encouraged his students to find a musical language of their own.⁶

His students included Wolfgang Muthspiel, Peter Havlicek, Guido Jeszenszky and Helmut Weinhandel; Gerald Gradwohl names him as a teacher.⁷ In the early 1990s Pepl also taught at the jazz seminars in Zeillern in Lower Austria, where Agnes Heginger and Lorenz Raab, among others, got to know him.⁸

What is suitable for teaching

Lead sheets. Around 20 pieces are available as lead sheets, newly typeset in 2020, including “Air, Love & Vitamins”, “Dinozzo”, “Radlbremser”, “Halley's Comet Light Blue Blues”, “Song for Gil”, “Scale Fox” and “Die alte Mär und das Mann”. Lead sheets for teaching can be requested; the Catalogue of works shows for which works scores are known.⁹

Practising as a path to freedom. Pepl practised themes with his bands until they were played “with a sleepwalker's certainty”, in order to be free in improvisation. With Air Mail, themes were played to the others instead of being notated, and rehearsed in unison.¹⁰ This can be reproduced directly with ensembles, for example with “Radlbremser” and its theme in semiquavers.

Transcribing. Pepl learned by listening to recordings by Wes Montgomery, Jim Hall, George Benson or John Coltrane and playing along by heart.¹¹ His own recordings lend themselves to this just as well.

Real-time Composing. Improvise and record one voice, a second as an answer to it, a third with a different sound, then change nothing more: Pepl's method is suited to exercises in improvisation, composition and music production, including with today's software (Real-time Composing). Heckel's dissertation shows, with listening reports, time-event tables and a verbal score, how unnotated music can be described and played anew.¹²

Playing with the original tracks. In the live project, musicians improvise with Pepl's tracks from the home studio (Projects). Whether individual tracks can be made available for university projects depends on the material and on rights; for many pieces only the stereo mix survives.¹³

Formats on request

For conservatories, universities and jazz departments, various forms of collaboration are conceivable, such as lectures about Pepl's life and way of working, workshops on Real-time Composing, projects with lead sheets or concerts by the live project. We clarify case by case what is possible (Teaching enquiry). With personal access, additional material that is not public can be retrieved; each application is assessed individually.